The Problem With Buses

From Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, India

There was this bus, the infamous bus with the crazy horn. There was also the night-bus I took from Vientiane to Phonsavan which blared Lao music for the solid twelve hours, or the night-bus in Malaysia on which the lady behind me would not let me recline my seat. There was another night-bus through Thailand where the driver and his friend chatted obnoxiously the entire time. There was the bus through the Philippines where they crammed twelve people in a eight-seater, or the one in Mexico that didn’t even give me a seat, but made me sit on a cage full of chickens. Most recently I took a very uncomfortable bus across the island of Java where I was squashed into the middle seat at the front, with a (broken) air-conditioning unit at my feet and a wobbly gearshift at my right. All in all, sometimes travelling is really difficult and really uncomfortable, especially by bus. Sometimes the music or the bus or its patrons are incredibly loud, sometimes it is too hot, sometimes it is too cold, sometimes one of its tires goes flat. And, without fail, it is always late to arrive.

But sometimes you see really amazing scenery. Sometimes you meet really cool people. And sometimes, if you’re extra lucky, there is a person by your side that you adore, and that makes everything okay, that makes everything bearable, not to mention the feeling you get when you arrive in a new destination, ready for a new adventure.